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How To Create a Service under NT/2000

There are occasions when it may be useful to run a Windows NT/2000 application as an NT/200 service. The Windows NT/2000 Resource Kit provides two utilities, INSTSRV.EXE and SRVANY.EXE, that allow you to establish a user-defined service.

Essential Downloads

INSTSRV.EXE - Utility to add or remove NT services (NT 4.0)
SRVANY.EXE - Utility to allow any NT application to run as an NT service (NT 4.0)

INSTSRV.EXE - Utility to add or remove 2000 services
SRVANY.EXE - Utility to allow any 2000 application to run as an 2000 service

Instructions

Warning: The following text includes instructions on modifying the system registry. Use extreme caution whenever you make changes to the registry. Inadvertent modifications may cause irreparable damage to your NT system.

Make sure that you are logged on as a user with administrative privileges. Also, verify that both INSTSRV.EXE and SRVANY.EXE are stored in a directory within the search path.

  1. Open up an MS-DOS command prompt.
  2. Type the following command: INSTSRV [service name] SRVANY.EXE
    where [service name] is the name of the service you are setting up. The service name can be whatever you want, but should be descriptive.                    
  3. Remove service example:
    INSTSRV MyService REMOVE  were "Myservice" is the service name.
  4. Open up the Registry Editor (Click on the Start Button, select Run, and type REGEDIT)
    • Locate the following key:
      HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\[service name]
    • From the Edit menu, select New, select Key, and name the new key Parameters
    • Highlight the Parameters key
    • From the Edit menu, select New, select String Value, and name the new value Application
    • From the Edit menu, select Modify, and type in the full path name and application name, including the drive letter and file extension
      Example: D:\Program Files\Network Monitor\netmon.exe
  5. Close the Registry Editor.

Related Pages

Microsoft Support Page: HOWTO set up a user-defined service (Article ID: Q137890)